Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Egypt: Independent labor unions declare new alliance

Egypt Independent

In a historic development,
two independent workers’ groups and several political parties joined
forces on Monday to establish the National Front for the Defense of
Labor Rights and Union Liberties.

The goals of the front include
the cancellation of the restrictive Trade Union Law 35/1976, the
issuing of the draft Trade Union Liberties Law promoting workers’ right
to free association, protecting unionists and laborers against punitive
sackings, confronting labor violations perpetrated by the state and/or
employers, and the establishment of a just pay-scale based on a
determined minimum and maximum wage (of no more than 15 times the
minimum).

At the core of this front are
the country’s two largest independent workers’ groups — the Egyptian
Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) and the Egyptian
Democratic Labor Congress (EDLC). A host of left-leaning political
parties have also joined, including the Egyptian Social Democratic
Party, the Egyptian Communist Party, the Tagammu Party, the Karama
Party, the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, the Constitution Party, the
Adl Party, and the Egyptian Socialist Party, among other political
movements.

Monday’s conference was
introduced by Ahmad Hassan al-Borai, the former manpower minister, under
whom the draft Trade Union Liberties Law was formulated.

The former minister announced,
“This front is not only for confronting the vicious attacks on union
rights, but also for the protection of basic labor rights and the
realization of social justice.”

Borai added that his draft
union law was prepared by September 2011, “yet remained a dead paper
which was shelved and collected dust” under the rule of the Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces, then at the hands of the People’s Assembly,
and most recently at the hands of the new manpower minister, the Muslim
Brotherhood’s Khaled al-Azhary.

According to Abdel Ghaffar
Shokr, chief of the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, “Azhary seeks to
get rid of the Trade Union Liberties Law and to merely make cosmetic
changes to Law 35.”

Borai concluded by saying he
hopes to see his Trade Union Liberties Law issued, and that he hopes to
witness “one unified independent federation” emerge via the unification
of the EFITU and EDLC.

While participants declined to
mention the aggregate number of union members between the EFITU and
EDLC, estimates suggest that their unification would amount to a
membership of fewer than 3 million. The EFITU is by far the larger of
these two workers’ groups, claiming a membership of nearly 2.5 million.

There are tens of recently established independent unions which are neither affiliated to the EFITU nor the EDLC.

Meanwhile, the
state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) still claims a
membership of 4.5 million workers. The ETUF had monopolized the trade
union movement in Egypt since its establishment in 1957.

The EFITU, which was
established on the fifth day of the 25 January revolution, emerged from
four independent unions which were founded between the years 2007-2011.
These four unions included the Real Estate Tax Authority Employees
Union, Independent Teachers Syndicate, the Egyptian Health Technologists
Syndicate and the Pensioners Federation.

Following administrative
disagreements, the Pensioners Federation broke away from the EFITU and
joined the EDLC. The EDLC had emerged as a labor umbrella group shortly
after the establishment of the EFITU.

The backbone of the EDLC is the
Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services (CTUWS), a labor rights
non-governmental organization. The EFITU, for their part, had objected
to a non-governmental organization such as the CTUWS having rights
within the organization equivalent to a union, to the CTUWS's receipt of
funding from foreign trade union federations (including the US-based
AFL-CIO), and to concerns that the CTUWS would act as an intermediary
between workers and the authorities.

Kamal Abbas, chief board
member of both the EDLC and CTUWS, clarified that future collaboration
of the EFITU with EDLC could take one of two forms — either a unified
independent trade union federation, or two different groupings with a
common leadership council or steering committee.

Participants and panelists
recommended the establishment of a joint committee of 10 board members —
five from the EFITU and five from the EDLC. Abbas recommended that the
merger process should be “carefully studied” and warned against “hastily
rushing into the process.”

Kamal Abu Eita, president of
the EFITU, commented, “Trade union unity must be voluntary and
non-compulsory.” Abu Eita pointed out that affiliation to the
state-controlled union federation was compulsory under the Mubarak
regime, and must not be so after Mubarak.

Like Abbas, Abu Eita
recommended “establishing either one unified federation, or one unified
leadership council for the two different federations.”

“Nowadays we have more
unionists who have been sacked, subjected to trials and unemployment
than under the Mubarak regime,” he added.

“Thirty-three unionists are
being interrogated by prosecutors for excising their right to strike,”
Abbas said. “Azhary is fighting us on two levels. On the first level, he
has been attacking independent unions claiming that we are
illegitimate, while it is the ETUF which is actually illegitimate.”

“On the second level,” he
continued, “he is attempting to control the ETUF. We are against party
control over the ETUF. We cannot accept that the Freedom and Justice
Party would take the place of its predecessor, the National Democratic
Party, in dominating and manipulating this state-controlled federation.”

“Unions must be independent of
the state and political parties. Unions must be democratically elected
and accountable to their constituents.”